Hello, my son was planning on attending Alfred U fot Art & Design this fall. They are officially requiring the vaccine and he will not be getting it. We will try to get an exemptionfor his medical condition, but in the case that he is not exmpted, what are some other outstanding and Design programs at colleges not requiring the vaccine?
Just want to point out that vax optional today might not still be vax optional come fall, particularly if any of the major vaccines get full approval (as opposed to the current emergency use authorization)before then.
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Sticky thread with list of college policies:
Check on college web sites to verify, since some may have changed.
Note that some colleges which do not require vaccination have additional restrictions (e.g. mask use, social distancing, etc.) for students who are not vaccinated.
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Besides the resources above, I also think it will be difficult to find a spot in a school for the Fall that may meet everything your S is looking for. Here is the current NACAC list of colleges with openings: College Openings Update - National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
I encourage you to download that list, as I am not sure how much longer it will be up.
Good luck.
If your son has a documented medical contraindication he will have NO problem securing an exemption at his school. Because of HIPAA, his personal info will be kept that way. The real question becomes what are the policies students in his position will have to follow once on campus.
You’re chasing a moving target. The situation is changing too rapidly to be able to plan for which schools might not require all students to be immunized by September. The Delta variant is more contagious, and more virulent than previous variants, and is causing serious illness, even in the young. It’s just starting to spread in the US, but is expected to become pervasive within a few weeks.
The problem is that the schools could very rightly say that any condition that would contraindicate immunization would also contraindicate attendance, under the current conditions, because any condition that would legitimately contraindicate immunization, would even more so contraindicate becoming infected with Covid. And with the currently available vaccines slightly less effective against the Delta variant, campuses will have to rely even more upon herd immunity to stop the spread of Covid on campus.
The point is, whatever the reasons that he will not be immunized, I think that his choices will become more and more limited as the effects of the Delta variant on the unimmunized becomes evident.
Utah passed a bill requiring that colleges allow students to opt out of Covid vaccination requirements for personal reasons, so any school in Utah would fit the bill for him. Surely one of the many colleges in Utah would have the art and design major that he’d be interested in. I would not be surprised if other conservative states have done the same, or will do so soon. If there is a school that he might be interested in, that is in a strongly “red” state, check to see if that state has mandated that students be allowed to opt out of covid vaccination and still be allowed to attend in-person learning.
Here is a list of colleges, state by state, which are requiring covid vaccination. Notice that certain states have very few schools requiring it - these states may have already passed laws making it effectively impossible to mandate covid vaccination.
https://universitybusiness.com/state-by-state-look-at-colleges-requiring-vaccines/
Know that your son will very likely be infected while attending such a school, even if he has already recovered from a Covid infection, because anywhere that unvaccinated people congregate, is very likely to become a hot spot for infection.
I don’t think the Florida schools will (can?) require the vaccine, so Ringling might be an option. You can check SCAD too, as Georgia seems to be reluctant to require anything.
Florida, along with Alabama and Texas, is prohibiting colleges from requiring COVID-19 vaccine.
Medical exemptions are nearly impossible to get, sadly. Will they accept a religious exemption? I don’t know anyone who has been denied a religious exemption yet. If the state does not allow for them, check with the school because many are accepting them in spite of state regulations.
Our D had NO problem securing approval for a (true) medical exemption at her school in PA. A simple letter from her doctor and application was all that was needed for them to review … hard to (legally) argue with a note from one’s doc.
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I know people with legitimate medical concerns. The issue is getting their doctor to provide the exemption not the college accepting. Not sure why it’s so difficult.
I can tell you why it’s so hard to get a letter. Any medical condition that would theoretically make the vaccine inadvisable (such as a strong, recent history of recurrent idiopathic thrombocytopenia), would make getting infected with Covid far, far more inadvisable than getting immunized. So if a person supposedly cannot get the vaccine, that person needs to be isolated at home, so that they don’t contract Covid. And that’s not even considering the risk to others, since if the vaccine is 95% effective, and an unimmunized person has a high chance of becoming infected, it can be expected that one in 20 immunized people who come into contact with her could become infected. That means that one unimmunized person could infect possibly ten people in a 200 person lecture hall. You can see how one unimmunized person could shut down a campus.
I suspect that a hard line will be held at many schools and in many states against allowing unimmunized people on campus, for their own safety, and more importantly, for the safety of the entire campus community. But not in Utah, Florida, Alabama, and Texas - I suspect other “red” states will follow. There, people will attend unimmunized, they will bring in Covid and spread Covid, some immunized people will contract it, some dedicated immunized older professor will become very ill from it, or die of it, and the campus will be shut down, or all classes will be held remotely and students will be confined to their dorm rooms, and everyone will be furious, everyone will lose. But hey, I guess that’s the price of freedom!
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concerns are different from actual medical exemptions, doctors are scientists and have read all of the data. Medical exemptions for the vaccine are very very few
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There is also the issue of what the exemption means. Can he live in the dorms, required to take tests periodically, required to leave or quarantine if there is an outbreak?
In the informational post about college policies, many colleges’ policies linked from there have stated that unvaccinated students are subject to additional COVID-19 protocols (e.g. more frequent testing, quarantine requirements if exposed, and/or increased mask wearing requirements).
However, if the state does not allow the use of “vaccine passports”, then the college would not be allowed to enforce such additional COVID-19 protocols only on unvaccinated students (since it is not allowed to verify vaccination status). That could mean that, at least if there is an outbreak, all students could be subject to additional restrictions if the college wanted to try to contain the outbreak or otherwise limit the risk of COVID-19 to the medically vulnerable members of its community. Or it may decide that protecting the medically vulnerable is not possible (practically or politically) and let COVID-19 do whatever it does (and the not-medically-vulnerable have their personal choice of whether to play COVID-19 lottery by whether or not they get vaccinated).
Or it may decide to simply shut down, and their professors may refuse to teach in-person classes.
You seem to not realize or forget that (knowing the vaccine only became available this spring) there were many schools that indeed held successful in-person classes the entire school year …. with positive cases yes but not outbreaks resulting in reported widespread hospitalizations or deaths at those schools. I am not sure why, at this point in the pandemic with what we know, vaccines which appear to be effective, prior infection immunity and therapeutics, you think it will be so much worse this year ?
Further, in terms of schools requiring the vaccine, it is not the majority of schools nationwide nor are most of those even requiring it for their faculty and staff, the very cohort most in need of protection.
The original poster indicated their son will seek exemption for a medical condition. I can tell you with certainty that there are other scenarios beyond the rare ingredient allergy, that would lead a doctor and patient to weigh risk/reward and seek an exemption. On a campus with such a mandate and assuming they take other precautions, the few outliers will likely not pose any more of a threat to others and themselves - given those around them are protected.
It is the policy of our D’s school (and likely others) that due to HIPAA, no medical information can legally be shared with the housing office or any other department. They told us “we have no idea what the vax status of the students are” … so yes, she can and will live in a dorm while participating in regular testing.
Decreased risk of outbreaks:
- Some people are immune from vaccination. Varies by region.
- Some people are immune from prior infection. Varies by region.
Increased risk of outbreaks:
- The B.1.617.2 / Delta variant that is rapidly becoming the dominant variant in the US is more transmissible than other variants (probably why it is becoming dominant, since increase transmissibility is an advantage in natural selection).
- Colleges and schools are likely to have closer-to-pre-COVID-19-normal in-person school, unlike the highly restricted in-person school that many of those which did do in-person school in 2020-2021 did.
- Regions of low vaccination rates are likely to be less receptive to COVID-19 mitigation measures against outbreaks.
One reason I think there could be a bigger outbreak AMONG THE UNVACCINATED is that many of the safeguards will be gone - the 6 feet apart, masks, hand washing stations, etc. Tonight we ate in a restaurant that had had every other table blocked off, required masks when you weren’t eating, had serving staff in masks all last year. The restaurant had remained open except when the city shut them down, but at a much reduced capacity. All that was gone. If several groups of unvaccinated people were eating in the restaurant at the same time, they are just as likely to catch or spread covid as they were in March 2020.
Unvaccinated students could protect themselves if they continue to wear masks and practice the other precautions but the schools and stores and community gathering places aren’t going to help out by requiring it. For them, they need all other unvaccinated people to also wear masks, stay 6 feet apart, stay home if they are sick, etc. I don’t think that will happen.